Taiko - Sunday

So, anyways, as you know, I was involved in the Kokura Taiko Gion festival which was rad as. here is some photos/videos from the last day. whereas saturday was the serious, go drum infront of the temple kind of day, sunday I was informed was the "freestyle/crazy/fight" day where u could do whatever u wanted and get nice and toasted drinking beer and sake on the streets of Kokura, it was the funnest thing EVER!!! some of our team had masks and stuff and even a Dragon Ball scouter! other dudes in other teams were dressed as power rangers, spiderman, drag queens, amongst others.

1. 2.

(1. ready to go, in my Hapi oustide So's families house. 2. drumming in masks is gangsta!)

3. 4.

(3. I am Vegeta. 4. Fun times.)

Me drumming......looks kinda weird....maybe cos I'm drumming fast...I prob look better drumming slower......(embarassed)

5. 6.

(5. Its a family affair... 6. I caught the Shinkansen still in all my Taiko gear, I rule.)

After the main part of the day, again we went back to the clubhouse and had some food and then a bunch of us took a drum in the beer cart and went back into town, this was where the real madness was, just heaps of peeps drumming hardout EVERYWHERE!!! we set up on the same corner and then another group came and set up with us and we ended up having a massive 3 drum thingy going on. I cant even begin to describe how much fun this was, even not drumming is awesome fun, everyone kinda dances by the dudes drumming encouraging them and chanting "ayasayasayasayasa!!!!" and stuff, i soon learnt how to do the chants and i was jumping around chanting and dancing and drumming with everyone else. The way in which everyone gets a turn at drumming is quite cool, basically if I wanted to drum I justgo up to the dude drumming and motion to him that im gonna take over and then he moves out of the way, OR the fun way is to just push the dude outta the way and start drumming! There is no set time u can drum for, sometimes i would be drumming for about 2-3 mins and then other times i would only be on for 20 seconds before being bumped. No one gets annoyed for being bumped or anything, its all part of the fun. Hopefully you can get some idea from this shorrt video.

I have to say it is definitly in the top 5 things ive done in my life (probably #1 actually) and I'm already thinking about a trip to Japan next year so i could do it again....but prob not.... but hey I hear there is a Taiko group in NZ! yey!